Tom Hart Dyke

Thomas Guy Hart Dyke (born 1976) is an English horticulturist and plant hunter. He is the designer of the World Garden of Plants at the family seat of Lullingstone Castle, Eynsford, Kent. The World Garden contains over 10 000 species of plants, many collected by Hart Dyke from their native environments.

Kidnapping

Hart Dyke follows a tradition of Victorian and Edwardian British plant hunters, such as Francis Masson, who risked life and limb to acquire rare species of plant. In 2000, Hart Dyke was kidnapped by suspected FARC guerilllas in the Darien Gap between Panama and Colombia while hunting for rare orchids, a plant for which he has a particular passion. He and his travel companion were held captive for nine months and threatened with death. He kept himself going by creating a design for a garden containing plants collected on his trips, laid out in the shape of a world map according to their continent of origin. [cite news
title = Award for jungle captive's garden
publisher = BBC News
date = 2005-11-14
url = http://212.58.226.50/1/hi/england/kent/4435042.stm
accessdate = 2006-10-04]

World Garden of Plants

On his return home, Hart Dyke put his design into practice within the walls of the family's Victorian herb garden. The story of the creation of The World Garden of Plants was the subject of a BBC2 series, "Save Lullingstone Castle" (KEO Films). This was followed by a second series, "Return To Lullingstone Castle". In May 2006, Hart Dyke managed to get an Australian Eucalyptus caesia plant (common name Silver Princess) to flower for the first time in the UK. [ cite news
title = Silver Princess Flowers for The First Time Ever in the UK
date = 2006-06-06
url = http://www.bbc.co.uk/kent/content/articles/2006/06/06/lullingstone_silver_princess_feature.shtml
accessdate = 2006-10-31]

ee also

*Kew Gardens

References

Further reading

* [http://www.lullingstonecastle.co.uk/ Lullingstone Castle and the World Garden of Plants]
* cite book
last = Hart Dyke
first = Tom
coauthors = Winder, Paul
title = The Cloud Garden
publisher = Corgi
date = 2004-02-02
location =
id = ISBN 978-0-552-77120-7
*cite book
last = Hart Dyke
first = Tom
title = An Englishman's Home: Adventures of an Eccentric Gardener
publisher = Bantam
date = 2007-03-01
id = ISBN 978-0-593-05698-1 (0-593-05698-1)